Breadth
by CrazyRabidChicken of Nibelheim
Summary: Don't say that!  Every time someone says that, there's a video game character somewhere who falls down dead.  Title has nothing to do with anything.  A girl with a passionate hatred for video games is sent into the FFVII dimension.  T for cursing, etc...
1. Chapter 1

Untitled

Disclaimer: No, I don't own or claim to own FFVII. Blah blah blah. Get a life.

**Chapter One**

The last thing she remembered was arguing with that stupid whore she was forced by her mother to call her brother. It had been an old fight: the epic clash of metalhead and gamer, of young and old, and most essentially of She Who Was Endowed With Laptop and He Who Was Not. The last thing she remembered was winning the latest battle in the war with the physical advantage of being seventeen and he thirteen, declaring, as she slammed the door, that she didn't give a fuck about Crush Bandicrap, and that she **hated**—

_Don't say that_, was the last thing she remembered him saying. _Every time somebody says that, there's a video game character somewhere who falls down dead._

Like they were in fuckin' Peter Pan or something. Well, Wendy was stupid. A fairy was right in front of her when she tried saying that there were no such thing as fairies...

A sigh made itself heard over the cover of scrubby weeds blowing in the wind. The lanky frame of a Caucasian teenager hauled itself slowly to its feet, only swaying for a moment due to a slight dark gray clouding that obscured her vision (otherwise known as head rush). Looking around with dark brown eyes, Lain scraped the sole of one beaten-up green converse against the fairly smooth asphalt of the road she had woken up lying next to, looking down the long highway in each direction. No signs, people, or vehicles popped up anywhere. Neither did any promising turns along the way. As far as she could see in either direction there was just baking road, a heat haze gathering over the pavement in what she judged to be the late-morning/early afternoon sun, with scrubby yellowish hills on either side.

The only thing vaguely resembling a dwelling or sign of human life besides the wide road itself was, now that she noticed it, was a very small shack type thing not far up the road. With any luck it would contain food, water, and people. Then hopefully she could get some answers as to what the crap had happened. The prospect of water was looking decidedly nicer than it had even five minutes ago (especially given the young woman was not a fan of the beverage) because in her favorite jeans roled up to their way-too-ripped knees, a black wifebeater and her leather trench coat, Lain was getting far too hot for her liking.

After peeling off the garment resentfully, she crossed the distance between herself and the shack quickly. It had no windows, and was build sloppily with questionable wood and far too many nails. Lain knocked three times, waited for some response, knocked again, shouted, "Hello?" After knocking one more time, she gave up and turned the door handle. It was unlocked, but the door wouldn't move. Turning the door handle with her stronger hand, Lain then shoved the thing with her shoulder. It popped open stiffly, swinging open with a high surplus of creaking and groaning. It then proceeded to fall off.

Lain quickly ascertained that there was no one inside and looked around. If anybody lived here, they had clearly not been here for some time. Cobwebs covered the corners, surely with some spiders along with them. A thick coat of dust lay over everything, only now disturbed by a new installation of ventilation, courtesy of Lain herself. She rubbed her nose as a preemptive strike against the sneeze she knew was coming. Along one wall were nailed a series of mostly bare shelves. The only things upon them were a few cans of soup, a couple powerbars, and a couple stacks of very large cases of bottled water. On the bottom shelf too many had been placed there, thus causing that shelf in particular to fall away from the wall.

_What the fuck kind of water junkie lives here?_ she thought as she grudgingly pulled one from its plastic encasing after clearing away cobwebs carelessly with one hand. Granted, she contemplated, not much of the water had been drunk.

After sending several spiders running for the hills (and smashing a few as well) Lain brushed off all remaining webs from the futon-style sleeping pad laid on the floor with her foot before sitting down heavily, tucking a horrendously pink piece of shoulder-length hair behind one ear irritably, reminding Lain of the miscalculation that had caused it. It had taken strong willpower not to walk around in a turban after the dye that was supposed to—and always had, until recently—turn her hair from its dull light brown color to a dark, blood red. Anyway it had come out an especially ugly pink—a color that not only did Lain hate but which was not flattering to her at all.

Gulping down about half of the small water bottle, Lain estimated how long the small amount of food on the shelves would last her. If she only ate about one or two meals a day, then this amount would hold her for about five or six days, if power bars counted as whole meals. But she would really want to find some other food by the end of those six days.

In that case what made most sense was to bring all the food and water she could with her and start walking now. Lain had no idea even what continent she was on by this point; she couldn't make the vaguest estimate as to when she would find _something_. With her luck she'd go the wrong way.

Deciding that even her trench coat's enormous pockets couldn't fit three large cans of soup, the slightly hungry teenager picked one up, clearing away dust with her thumb and looking for an expiration date. She assured herself that she wasn't about to eat something that had been meant to be eaten ten years prior before prying open the can with the small tab that came with it. Glad that it was the kind that was already cooked, just needed heating, Lain gulped down the cold chicken noodle soup then set aside the can, feeling full if not very satisfied.

Scratching a new bite on her calf (no doubt from some spider with revenge on its mind) with chipped black nails, the seventeen-year-old waited for the cold soup in her stomach to digest for a while. Sitting on the futon with her back against the wall, brown eyes dulled by heat stared senselessly off into space, Lain's only movements those to either sip water or wipe away droplets of sweat gathering on her upper lip or forehead. Other than that she was still in the simmering heat.

Some time later, (maybe an hour or so?), when Lain was finally considering dragging herself out into the sun and away from her sort-of shelter, a harsh, revving sound reached her ears. The crashing machine noise of...an engine. A motorcyle engine. There was a motorcycle somewhere down the road, coming this way.

Heat lethargy forgotten, Lain sprung to her feet, heading for the door. She was almost worried that the motorcycle would pass by before she got outside, but surprisingly, before she was even visible to the outside world, it had stopped completely. Lain's steps faltered, then stopped quite as entirely as the motorcycle outside. She listened, and heard the sounds of clinking zippers, normal, then heavy footfalls and the creak of leather boots. In a singular movement, Lain reached into her back pocket for her pocket knife and fell backward, landing on the futon again, leaning as she had been against the wall, waiting for anything.

When a blonde man not more than a few inches taller than her walked inside, Lain intended on coming off as cool and unconcerned, which, granted, she could have been, even with the man all spiky-haired and clad in an enormous shoulder guard. But with the even bigger-ass sword carried pretty much casually in a leather holder on his back, Lain did a pretty big double take. It wasn't like she'd _never _seen a sword before, but _damn_.

_Compensating for something?_ Lain thought automatically, then mentally bitch-slapped herself for being a pervert. The man noticed her right away, and seemed to almost shift into some kind of funky stance before deciding she wasn't a threat for the moment. Or something along those lines. It wasn't as though his thoughts were exactly written out on his face. The man's expression was very guarded, actually. Lain didn't say anything; she just sat there lethargically, watching him and waiting for the man (hereby referred to as Blondie) to speak. After all, what was she supposed to say? "Hi there, this your shack? It's very nice. I hope you don't mind that I ate some of your nasty-ass cold soup. I'll be on my way. Oh wait, are there any, you know, towns around here? No? Well, shucks." **Whoop** dee doo.

"What are you doing here?" Blondie finally said, still watching her with that I'm-not-giving-away-what-I'm-thinking look. She felt his eyes twitch over her hair once, and mentally cursed hair dye forever. Blondie didn't have a right to look down on her _yet_.

"I think they call it squatting," Lain said, taking a sip from a water bottle and dragging herself to her feet. _Well, maybe now he does._ "I didn't think anyone lived here; I'll clear off."

"I don't live here."

"So why stop?" Lain crossed to the door and looked out. "Nice bike you got there. You don't look like you're lacking a house..."

"I'm not.

"Then...?"

"I built this."

"... What the crap for?"

"A pit stop. You don't see any others around here, do you? Besides, I'm asking the questions. This isn't the type of place people just walk around. What happened, did someone leave you by the side of the road or something?" Blondie looked as though he could see why someone would. _Well, thanks for the good thoughts, Blondie._

"No." He didn't look like he believed her. "I dunno, I was just like talking to my little brother and then shit went black and I woke up up the highway from here." Realizing how that sounded, Lain rolled her eyes and said, "Not like he did anything to me or anything. Gawd, I'd pound that little ho to a pulp if he tried slipping something in my food or whatever. He just wanted my laptop." Blondie didn't look very expressionless anymore. Now he was just looking at her with a very "yeah, sure," look on his face.

"Fine then, I got gangraped and dumped off a truck. I grew up in a brothel and finally couldn't bear the tragic life of a crackwhore any longer. Believe whatever you want. Can I have some food for the walk to wherever now?" The look on Blondie's face made Lain want to burst out laughing, and she decided that he wasn't as imperturbable as he first appeared.

"It's pretty far in either direction to even a truck stop," Blondie said.

"How far?" Lain asked.

"About twenty miles east, fifty west."

"Fuck. What'd you build a pit stop in the middle of nowhere for?" she said exasperatedly.

"... Because it's the middle of nowhere."

"Okay, so do you feel like giving me a ride to the closest truck stop?"

"Not really. I run a delivery service and I have to get that," he pointed to the large crate strapped to the end of his huge-ass bike, "somewhere by the end of the day. If there's no one you can call, you can come with me to do that, then I can give you a ride back to Edge."

"What's Edge?" Lain asked blankly. She'd never heard of anywhere called Edge before. And it wasn't like it could be some exotic city with an English name like that.

"You don't know where Edge is?" Blondie said incredulously.

"...Noooo..."

"Some people call it neo-Midgar?" Blondie offered. Lain shook her head again.

"What's Midgar?" she asked blankly.

"How old are you?"

"Seventeen."

"Where're you from?"

"Seattle. Washington...? USA?" Blondie didn't show any signs of recognition. _That's...really weird. Where the fuck am I?_ Lain was starting to get the beginnings of a slight headache, and gulped down some more water, wiping her forehead. Who didn't know where the U.S. was? It was the country that was the biggest pain in the ass in the world!

"How you don't know anything about Midgar I don't know, but if you're that sheltered I'm not letting you wander off on your own," Blondie said with a mixture of adultish responsibility tone and slight disdain. It irritated Lain significantly, but she didn't feel like arguing right now. If being the sheltered kid in Blondie's eyes got her a ride to some city and the use of a phone, that was fine with her for now. Like a very skilled, smooth person, Lain had a pocket knife (now returned to her pocket) but no phone or money.

"Hokay," she said. "So...we should probably get going. Delivery boy and all? Hey, that reminds me," Lain hooked a thumb into her belt loop and rubbed her spider bite with one shoe. "What's your name? I mean, unless you prefer Blondie."

Blondie looked somewhat offended, and paused a moment before saying, "Cloud." Lain nodded, walking out of the shack before Blon—Cloud could, and tossing over her shoulder, "My name's Lain."

As it happened, Cloud's motorcycle was even more...interesting than at first glance. With the press of a small button, wings on the sides flicked out, offering a place for him to put his sword...along with about five or six others. It was too much, she had to ask.

"Okay, dude, what the hell is up with all the swords? And where'd you get the sword bike from, anyway?" Cloud looked at her like it was a strange question to ask.

"The sword's for, well, anything I need it for, and I modified the bike to fit them." Lain decided that as long as Cloud didn't decide that one of the things he needed a sword for was for lopping off her limbs, it wasn't really her problem. Lain fit easily between Cloud and whatever was in the crate. Cloud didn't have a helmet for himself, let alone her, which brought up both his coolness factor in Lain's eyes and his stupidity. He was one dead dumbass if he crashed, that was for sure. And how he was supposed to even drive the thing was starting to be beyond Lain, for once actually on the vehicle, it seemed even bigger.

_Really __**really**__ compensating for something?_ Lain had to wonder again.

Cloud waited until Lain had her arms clasped around his stomach (_ooh, muscular... too bad he's a blondie_) before kicking the bike into gear and revving the engine for a second, then speeding off.

Once they were really going, Lain was leaning her head back and grinning widely, but it felt awkward with all the air rushing by at a million miles an hour so she just faced forward and enjoyed the ride. Lain had been on motorcycles before, so she knew basically how most of it worked (vaguely) and she knew that you really weren't meant to be able to go this fast. Every time a tiny bump in the road came up, Lain felt a thrill of adrenaline that made her sure she was about to fly off to her very pumped death. After about ten thrilling minutes, though, Lain was starting to wish that Cloud had been able to scrounge up at least an extra pair of goggles for her.

Lain blinked furiously but eventually accepted defeat and closed her eyes just as they finally rounded their first corner after what felt like fifteen, twenty minutes (which meant it must have been miles and miles and miles with how fast they were going.) Annoyed that she'd missed it, Lain pouted into the collar of her flying trench coat.

By the time they stopped, Lain had lost track of time, though it felt like hours. They were near a coast line now, and the smell of sea water was strong in her nose. It'd been a while since Lain had been to any kind of ocean. In Seattle the closest body of water was the Puget sound. The house that Cloud had stopped next to was large, like a big beach house. Lain hopped off the bike first, looking up at the house, wondering what these people had needed delivered.

"What time is it, anyway?" Lain asked Cloud as he dismounted his motorcyle. The sun had moved across the sky to a certain degree, but it was still baking hot and they had traveled so she couldn't tell exactly how much. Cloud replied by tossing her a black flipphone. Inspecting it told Lain that it was about four o'clock.

Cloud was just unstrapping the crate when a few men came out of the house and into the driveway.

"Arh you the deliv'ry boy?" one said in a thick accent that Lain most easily matched as British. Cloud nodded with a low affirmative grunt.

"'Oo's she?" the same man asked, indicating Lain. She didn't say anything, deciding that however Cloud wanted to handle it was his business.

"She's the new guy," Cloud said simply, "works with me." Lain nodded to affirm this, silently commending him on the thought. She'd been thinking something along the lines of distant family member or somesuch, but work partner was better now that she thought about it; partners meant that Cloud would have her back, but there wasn't extra attachment beyond that. Good message to send.

"I can see why she'd have nothin' betta to do...where'd ya find that one?" said another man.

"Fuck you," Lain said irritably, deciding that someone who looked like that man shouldn't be saying anything about anybody. He looked something like the offspring of a fat pug and somebody who'd been infused with crystal meth as a child.

"_Anyway_," said Cloud, looking as though he rather agreed with the man but not having the patience—Lain _knew_ she saw Cloud glance at her disgusting hair again, she was sure of it—"here's your package, delivered on time as promised. The agreement was five-hundred gil."

_Gil?_ Lain thought. _What kind of currency is that?_ The term didn't seem foreign to the men at all, though, for the one in front (hereby referred to as Retard Number One) didn't question the currency. However, his arms folded in front of him, face molding into the businessman's perfect expression of impassiveness.

"I don't know about that, actually," Retard Number One said, shaking his head now. "I think the agreement was five-'undred gil, delivered by three-fifty-five 'ere with no questions asked." Retard Number One looked to his righthand man who had made the comment about Lain's appearance (hereby referred to as Retard Number Two), who glanced at a watch.

"...and now it's four oh eight now. Tut tut, Ah think that right there deserves a dock in pay, that's how we do it. Yeah."

"The agreement was four o'clock. I may have cut it fine, but I want my money. We've spent about eight minutes talking." Cloud was sparing these men nothing. Lain got the feeling that this wasn't the first time people had tried to find reasons not to pay him. She started to wonder whether these men knew that he had some hefty-ass swords in his bike.

"...and anyway, not that the rules're as strict as they used to be back in the old Midgar days, but this stuff we're carryin' is a bit sensi'ive in nature, if you undehstand my drift. We trusted you, but now you've gone an' involved 'er, an' she's not even the gehl from the phone, I can tell, an' it's all a bit more complicated."

Lain almost instinctively folded her arms into a more defensive pose, eyes hardening and mouth forming a fine line. She resisted the urge to say anything, though, as it was Cloud's problem. Cloud was having none of Retard Number One or Two's stupidity, though, which comforted Lain somewhat.

"What you hire transport for isn't my business. I don't know or care. But there was nothing in our agreement about who I'm allowed to have along," here he glanced at Lain, "or you being able to change the time. I want every one of that five hundred gil." Retard Number One drew a pouch of what sounded like coins from his coat, hefting it in his hand.

"Now, why don't you just pass along that parcel," he said, "and we'll talk about this."

Cloud stared intimidatingly at Retard Number One, vibrant blue eyes boring into muddy brown ones rather similar to Lain's. Finally, he said stonily, "there's nothing to talk about," and tossed the crate effortlessly toward one of the larger men standing behind Retard Number One, who caught it with apparent difficulty that seemed inconsistent with the ease with which Cloud had moved the crate through space.

"Five hundred gil," Cloud repeated, his voice equally impassive. RNO tossed the pouch into the air just above his hand, caught it again, and repeated the action. Then, without so much as a warning expression or gesture, RNO drew a pistol...and shot Cloud.

Wait. No. Lain's brain tried to process what she had just seen. RNO _should_ have shot Cloud, _tried_ to shoot Cloud, _shot_ at Cloud, but completely _failed_ to shoot Cloud. In a motion that was barely slow enough for Lain's vision to percept, Cloud's hand had whisked out, slammed the button that jacked open the sword-holders, yanked one out smoothly, and shielded himself from the bullet with the blade of his sword, which bounced off with a metallic clink that pierced the echo of gunfire.

Lain was in awe as she watched, dumbstruck, Cloud crossing the distance between himself and Retard Number One within miliseconds, shoving him back with the flat side of the wide blade of his sword, snatching the half-tossed bag of "gil" out of the air with a practiced snatching motion that looked distinctly unlike Cloud, which made Lain think he must have learned it from someone else. As Cloud repelled more bullets coming his way, Lain at least had the sense to dive behind Cloud's bike as she noticed a gun being aimed her way. Cloud came back into view, revving the engine with one hand while fending off bullets with the other, then performing both tasks with one hand in order to lift Lain off the ground with his left, and by the time he had placed her behind him, they were gone.

"That's what the swords are for," he shouted over the roar of the motorcycle's engine.

"How the fuck did you do that?" Lain bellowed back, still in disbelief. "No one can do all that...it's impossible! People's bodies don't _move_ that fricking fast!"

"Mine does," Cloud answered, not bothering to explain any further. Lain fast came to the conclusion that she was traveling around with some kind of stunt man battle freak, and immediately resolved not to get on his bad side. Cloud hadn't actually hurt any of the assorted Retards, but that didn't leave her in any doubt that he could have seriously sliced their shit to pieces if he'd felt like it.

"Where now?" she yelled to Cloud.

"Edge."


	2. Chapter 2

Breadth

Disclaimer: Yah, so you give me copyright to deh eff eff seben, yah? Nein? Damn, focking Americans who dink dey own even deh Japanese games.

**Chapter Two**

The trip back to "Edge" wasn't a short one, it turned out. This made sense, but Lain still found it amusing to find herself hopping off the back of Cloud's bike only to arrive before another of Cloud's "pit stops." It had gotten dark a while ago, and Lain could only guess that Cloud wanted to eat something and sleep between now and the rest of their epic journey. Cloud cut the engine and dismounted the bike after her, lifting his goggles off his blue eyes. Lain was taken aback to notice that Cloud's eyes, which had seemed just regular blue in daylight were now glowing luminously.

"Um, dude...?" Cloud looked at her wordlessly as he twisted the sticky doorknob. "Your eyes are like, glowing..." Cloud seemed to find this information neither new nor interesting. In fact, he almost looked like what she'd told him had been said so often that it was getting annoying.

"It's the mako," he said simply, forcing the door open. Lain looked at him blankly, then decided not to ask. It would only make Cloud think even more that she was stupid, strange, or something to that effect. Walking inside the shack after Cloud, Lain looked around.

This one was rather better furnished upon closer inspection, which made Lain think that this one was probably used more often than the one she had come across. It had a futon and a couch this time, and featured a small woodstove with a fairly decent pile of logs next to it. Not to mention a working door. Lain pulled off her trench coat and dropped it on the couch, stretching and plopping down on it.

Cloud pulled a large pot off a shelf and emptied two cans of some kind of chowder into it. He loaded the stove full of wood. As though this was as natural as breathing, Cloud leaned forward, hand outstretched to the wood, and, after a greenish glow emitted from his wrist, out of nothing, flames began crackling and wood started popping.

"How the..." Lain muttered, "how did you _do _that?"

"Haven't you ever seen materia used before?" said Cloud, looking over his shoulder at her. Lain shook her head, nonplussed. He shrugged, as though making an effort to no longer be surprised at her ignorance. Lain in turn decided to try not to be surprised by anything for now; she'd be very interested to see who was walking around this city they were heading to, Edge. Knowing her luck there'd be people with fishbowls for heads walking around, like in Abarat or something.

"All right, I guess I'll show you," Cloud said, turning away from the stove and standing from his previously kneeling position. Lain stood as well, hooking her thumbs into her belt loops. Cloud procured a small green sphere from one of his metal gauntlets. She hadn't noticed it before. "There are different kinds of materia; this is a magic one," he held up the green sphere. "Magic materia is green, Summon is red, Command is yellow. This is a Fire materia, which lets me cast Fire spells, like what I used to light the stove."

"How do you use it?" Lain said, enraptured. If she hadn't just seen Cloud do it, she would have told him to stop pretending and realize that she was, in fact, seventeen, not some fantasizing little kid.

"You have to equip it first. Materia can be equipped to weapons or armor. I'd have you do it, but you don't seem to have any of either. Here, look," Cloud said, and held it against his gauntlet again. The green materia glowed before absorbing back into the gauntlet as though it were able to compromise its own solidity. It glowed as part of the gauntlet for a moment, then dulled out of sight.

"Crazy shit," was Lain's only comment. Cloud ignored her and went back to the stove where the soup was now bubbling and giving off a nice smell. The magic-using blondie whisked the pot off the stove and procured some rough bowls and a couple spoons, serving first himself, then asking, "Hungry?" It seemed a bit strange that he should ask, after all, it wasn't as though he could very well consume two whole enormous cans of soup by himself. Never the less, she nodded, and he filled a bowl for her as well.

The chowder turned out to be some kind of creamy potatoey concoction quite heavy-handed with hydrogenated bits of parsley. It wasn't something that Lain felt she had had before. It was hot, which made certain that she ate fairly slowly, though she was still eating a hint on the quick side of normally paced. However, when she went to the pot for seconds, Cloud was already on his fourth bowl, eating extremely quickly. This amused her slightly, and made her feel rather better, as she'd always been the one who ate the most fastest out of her group of friends.

A while after she had stopped eating, though, her stomach started to make rather unpleasant gurgling noises, and Lain started to turn a bit paler than normal.

"Say, Blondie," she said, completely forgetting in her discomfort that her given pseudonym wasn't actually to Cloud's taste, "what's in that soup?" Cloud shrugged and picked up an empty can. He read off the ingredients boredly.

"Cream, potatoes, clam juice—"

"Oh fuck."

"What?"

"I'm allergic to clams," Lain said, grimacing as her stomach gave another unpleasant gurgle. She muttered angrily to herself, "why didn't I remember to check...why didn't I notice..." in a pained tone. The discomfort in her abdomen intensified, along with an uncomfortable lightness in her stomach that meant certain doom.

"I think," she said thickly, getting to her feet while watched by an only mildly concerned Cloud, "I'm going to go outside for a little while." She heaved and staggered toward the door, and at least had the sense to stagger across the road so that when she threw up, it wasn't right outside their front door that the smell would be coming from later. About ten minutes later, Lain was still retching unevenly, her body thoroughly displeased with the whole situation. Most of the contents of her stomach were pretty much gone.

After another five minutes, Cloud emerged from the shack. He watched her for a moment before asking whether or not a Cure spell would help. Lain told him that if it would do anything to change the current situation, then yes, it would help. When Cloud used said Cure spell, Lain felt a pleasant uplifting sensation, along with the revelation that she was briefly surrounded by a twinkly green glow...then sank back into feeling utterly miserable. She did notice, however, that a few scratches on her hands from various causes had disappeared. Lain informed Cloud that his Cure spell was completely useless then started trudging back to the pit-shack. Cloud, wisely, did not reply.

When Lain had even grown comfortable enough to be getting sleepy, Cloud had the grace to offer her the futon for the night in light of her unfortunate food incident, which Lain accepted gratefully. Cloud chucked her a pillow from the couch, and Lain slept under her trench coat. Lain fell asleep fairly quickly, not having fully realized how tired she was until her head hit pillow.

Lain woke up rather painfully the next morning to a fat, freshly minted beam of sunlight aimed right at her face. She smacked her nose on the wall when she rolled away, groaning, then cursed in a grumble that never the less carried threw the entire room. Finally, when she reached out for her shoe and hit something on the wall and rolled away with a cry of "Holy shit," Cloud, who had been snoring lightly, woke, turning groggily to see what on Earth she was doing.

Lain was engaged in what looked like heavy combat (armed with her left shoe) with a spider the size of a puppy. They were circling each other, each with murder in their eyes. Without warning Lain swung her shoe down with the canvas part of one of her green high tops and crushed one of the spider's legs, earning a hiss from the spider. With the thing partially incapacitated, Lain proceeded to pick up one of Cloud's discarded epaulets before he could stop her and smash the whole spider. After watching it murderously for a moment as though it would rise from the grave, Lain fell backward onto her butt, followed by her back so that she was lying on the floor with her knees propped up, arms spread as she tried to regain her shattered sleep with a sound reminiscent of some sort of irritated giraffe.

Cloud sent her a very annoyed look as he forced himself to get up, solely motivated by past experience's knowledge that if left alone for too long, monster (and in this case spider) ick would stick quite unpleasantly to the hard leather of this certain piece of armament. He then went about the very serious business of cleaning the shoulder guard.

Lain popped open one eye—for it was all she could muster—to see what Cloud was doing. The methodic way he went about this whole shoulder-guard-cleaning thing made her arrive at the conclusion that not only was he uber duper strong and skilled in the sword department, but also that A) the idea of puppy-sized spiders wasn't all that new to him (or he was just too tired to care) and B) he was quite used to cleaning up after their blood and guts. Which pointed to military, serial killer, hick, or any combination of the three. Either way, not someone to fuck around with. Which she knew to start with. _Congratulations, Lain, you've now given yourself even more reason not to piss off Blondie. Excellent use of time and brain cells._

After consuming a half ton of power bars, Cloud made it clear that it was time to be going, by way of simply walking out the door. Lain, who had at first assumed that he had to take a piss, had to run, scrambling over herself, to jump on the back of the motorcycle as she heard the engine rev. Toying with the idea that Cloud might have actually left her if she'd been too slow as she clasped her arms around his torso, Lain decided that no, he wouldn't have left her stranded. Despite seeming mostly disinterested in her, Cloud didn't strike her as the type. More like he wanted people to think he was the type so he didn't have to mess around.

Lain saw Edge a while before they reached it. The highway had leveled into one long, flat road that stretched very far down, branching off in several places, and thus Lain got a pretty good look at the distant image of the gray-looking city before the drove into the city limits.

Edge looked nothing like Lain had ever seen. It was distinctly industrial, made mostly from metal beams that supported the main infrastructure of the whole city; like those huge metal pieces on bridges that go across the top periodically—only crisscrossing over each other with no definable pattern. There was a rather disorganized air about the whole place. Sidewalks were much less noticeably separate from the street than Lain was used to. Crosswalks were less defined, and stoplights were less frequent. There were plenty of cars, but no visible traffic jams anywhere—that was certainly different. Cloud drove more slowly in the city than he had on the wide-open roads, which gave Lain more opportunity to look around her and an easier time of keeping her eyes open. They rounded a corner, and Cloud pulled to a stop outside what looked more like a business than a home. Closer inspection proved that Lain was correct; a sign that read Seventh Heaven hung neatly over the door. From the look of it the place was a bar. A nice bar, one whose slick, polished surfaces screamed of cleanliness and select clientele. Cloud pushed open the door casually, ignoring the Closed sign in the glass door, a small bell tinkling in reply as he walked inside, followed by Lain.

"Hn?" A woman appeared from behind the polished bar counter, straightening up and brushing a lock of fine, straight black hair from where it had fallen over one eye, which turned out to be a dark shade of brown that almost glinted a little bit maroon. Everyone had funky eyes! She was a bit shorter than Lain, but obviously older, more mature. Not to mention she was just a little bit more drop-dead gorgeous than Lain had ever aspired to be.

When she saw Cloud, the woman's features brightened, mouth lifting upward in a graceful arc to form a wide, genuine smile that seemed to light up the already sunlit room. It was a simple gesture, one that Lain suspected the woman used every day, but there was something special in the way she then said, "Welcome home, Cloud." And then it was perfectly obvious to Lain. _Oh. Right. Boob-lady wants Blondie. Or maybe already has Blondie._

"Hey, Tifa," Cloud replied, a smile of his own quirking at his mouth. Lain, feeling very much like Emma, surveyed the way he spoke, the way he smiled, and came to the conclusion that Cloud liked Tifa as well, but for some reason they weren't together. Fascinating. Lain would have to remind herself to care sometime. Meanwhile, Tifa had now noticed Lain, and had tilted her head to one side.

"Hello there," she said kindly, "who're you?"

"Uh, I'm Lain," Lain said off-handedly. "I sorta broke into one of Cloud's pit stops a while before he showed up." This didn't appear to clarify things for Tifa, and she looked from Lain to Cloud, as though waiting for either to say something else. Something seemed to twitch in Cloud's face, a barely perceptible motion in the direction of further inside the bar. Tifa seemed familiar with this and turned immediately to Lain.

"Here, Lain, have a seat," she said, pulling out a barstool that was extraordinarily comfortable when Lain sat down. She then whisked behind the bar. "Can I get you anything to drink? Well, you're too young to drink, but would you like a soda, juice, water? I have pretty much everything back here." Lain, surprised at being suddenly accommodated with almost no questions asked, hesitated for a moment before saying, "Uh, Sprite'd be nice. Thanks." Tifa poured the soda into a slim glass, added some red ice cubes.

"Sick," Lain asked, looking at Tifa, "how's that work?"

"Cranberry juice," Tifa said, giving what looked like her version of a smirk (it was really too kind to be a real smirk, but you had to give the woman credit for trying) Lain grinned and took a sip, and in that Tifa seemed to decide that Lain could now be left on her own. "'Scuse us for a moment, Lain," she said, and walked briskly from the room, followed by Cloud.

Lain sipped her Sprite, smirking at the glass, then tipped her barstool for about a minute trying to make the air pumping out of the vent behind the bar hit her just right and tried to suspend all disbelief for the moment. She was in a city called Edge, at least Cloud if not everyone else didn't know what the fuck the U.S. was, and only a phone call would tell if there was any way of reaching home. What else was there? Oh no, duck and cover, Rhino stampede on the upper level of Earth. Lain almost chuckled to herself, taking another sip of Sprite. _I bet somebody's an alien around here._ She could've gone on, but was glad to be stopped by the reentrance of Cloud and Tifa. Cloud looked nondescript; Tifa was smiling.

"So, Lain, locating your family geographically seems like it's out; do you have a phone number you can call them at?" Tifa said. "We have a phone here you can use."

"Okay, cool," Lain replied, allowing all four legs of her stool to resume their place on the ground as she sat up straight once more, then stood at Tifa's indication that she should follow, following Tifa up a short set of stairs to a small table cluttered with papers that seemed to pertain to a delivery service, as well as a framed photograph of Cloud, Tifa, and a brown-haired kid who looked like neither Cloud nor Tifa. Cloud looked nondescript; Tifa was smiling. The boy was grinning widely, but was looking up at Cloud. Next to the picture was a white handset with a curly cord and a slim receiver that Lain lifted tentatively, listening to the dial tone before dialing her home number. It seemed to wait forever before dialing, and then gave her a message about not being able to connect or some bullshit like that. Lain's middle finger hung up and dialed her mom's cell phone number. Same thing. Then her dad's. Same thing again. Finally with an air of resignation Lain called her brother's cell phone. Even that got the same message.

Lain muttered a few obscenities under her breath and looked at Tifa. "None of the numbers I have work." Tifa tilted her head, frowning slightly. "That's strange," she said, picking up the receiver and dialing eleven numbers quickly. Almost immediately a ringing sound emitted from somewhere on Cloud's person, and he flicked open a shiny black phone just as Tifa hung up—"the one time you decide to pick up, Cloud?"—and Tifa said, "well, it's working for that."

"Your phones are eleven numbers?" Lain asked.

"Of course," Tifa said, "it's the same everywhere because of the lower number of phones since Meteor."

"Mine are seven." Tifa looked very confused now.

"That's strange. There've never been seven-number phone numbers, as far as I know."

"...Okay?"

"Cloud, give me your phone for a second," Tifa said, holding out a hand. Cloud got out his phone again and handed it to her without a word. Tifa flicked it open and dialed, resulting in another ring coming from the landline. She then handed it to Lain. "Try this one." Lain dialed, and got the same message again. She flicked the phone shut and tossed it to Cloud, who caught it and slipped it back into one of his many pockets.

"Well. That sucks," Lain said dejectedly. "What do you guys want to do? I've been a pain in the ass already." She didn't look at Cloud for the "yeah, I know," expression that she was expecting.

"No, Lain, it's our pleasure," said Tifa automatically, "I'm just sorry we can't get ahold of any of your family. Do you have any relatives who live anywhere else besides...Seattle?" It seemed to take her a minute to remember the name.

"All my family except the dead ones are in America anyway," Lain said, "and if you guys seriously don't know where that is, then I'm fucked."

"All right," said Tifa, apparently thinking to herself as she spoke. "Then how would you like to stay here for a while? Maybe help me out at the bar a little for some spare cash while we try to figure out where you need to get to?" It seemed she was going to go on, but Cloud spoke suddenly.

"The way things look right now, there's a really solid chance you'll never see your family again. It'd be good for you to have a place to stay while you learn how to live here." Cloud's words hit her in a strange way. Blondie had just told her, very seriously, that in all likelihood she wouldn't see her family again, and had completely skipped the dealing with it step and gone to learning to live without them. Now, Lain was a teenager. She never liked to think that she depended on her parents more than she could get away with not admitting to. But what Cloud was saying—without any pretense of sensitivity; just practicality—was completely different from Lain's realm of perception. The fact that Cloud was taller than her seemed much more apparent now than when Lain had first met him.

_I'm alone. With strangers. Nice ones. __**Fuck.**__ This is weird. Why do I feel like time is passing really, really slowly? Why are Blondie and Boobs staring at me? I've only been lost in thought for a couple seconds... Right? Oh shit, am I having an existential crisis or something? Aw fuck I don't need more therapy shit... Goddamn it, stop staring at me, Boobs! And Blondie, what the fuck are you looking at?_

"...Lain?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you okay?"

"Sure, I'm fine."

"So how about staying here with us for a while?"

"Great. Why not?"

"Okay. Say, how 'bout Cloud goes to pick up the kids from school and when he gets back we'll introduce you to Marlene and Denzel?"

"Okay."

"Okay."

_**Wait, what?**_


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: **huffs **Well, FINE, if you HAVE to keep all those characters, then just be that way.

**Author's Note:** I wrote part of this chapter while listening to an orchestra recording; you'll have to forgive me if its usual caustic humor is rather lacking in later parts.

**Chapter Three**

"Lain, Lain, Lain, wake up!"

"Yeah, come on Lain, get up already!"

"It's almost noon!"

Lain hated children. Really. There was nothing redeeming about them in any sense. They weren't even cute. Puppies were cute. Kittens were cute. _Ducklings_were cute. There were few things less cute than a human child, in Lain's personal opinion. They were annoying, often fat, or just painfully skinny, and either complained too much or thought they were the shit when they weren't. Just not cute. And now, she didn't just happen to live in the same house as an annoying middle schooler; she lived _with_ two ten-year-olds, never mind the fact that she had her own room. It had been only around fourteen or so hours since Lain had met Marlene and Denzel (or, as Lain liked to call them, Annoyance One and Annoyance Two), and already she felt that it would be too soon if she ever saw them again. Why? Because they had just very forcefully removed her from the realm of sleep _at six-fucking-thirty _on a Saturday, _and_ lied and said it was noon to justify their actions before sprinting out of killing range. Not that the day of the week held any relevance to her for the time being, given that it seemed pretty normal for a seventeen year old to be out of school around here, and the bar wasn't supposed to open until about four in the afternoon anyway, but _still._ It was _Saturday_, and she was entitled to at least ten hours. And, given that she had gone to bed at around one in the morning after reading a fairly interesting book the last occupant of the room had left there on various gun models (which also provided some interesting insight on the nature of _materia slots_), her quota was not filled. At all.

The disgruntled teenager was now sprawled unattractively on the floor, pushing herself up by her arms and casting a glare at the digital clock radio on the bedside table. It looked very similar to the one she'd had back at home. Maybe the bastards were cousins. Falling back onto the low-slung but extremely comfortable bed she'd been provided with, Lain sighed irritably, cursing human reproduction and adoption and whatever else led to the existence of both parties responsible for her early waking. Then, because she'd always been shitty at going back to sleep once woken up, she found her way sulkily to her feet, reminded as she reflexively rearranged her bedraggled clothes after sleeping that she was still wearing the same clothes from the day before. Well, that was obvious, given that she didn't exactly carry a bag of spare clothes with her every place she went. But after making sure that her pants weren't shoved up to her belly button or her shirt shoved around to show things the public really shouldn't see, Lain moved lazily from her room to the main hallway, then stumbled down the stairs to the kitchen off the bar, neglecting to tie her hair out of her face, giving her a further cause for complaint as she was forced to actually look at the nasty pink mop-like material that covered her head. Under different circumstances Lain would have checked to make sure it was okay for her to raid the kitchen of her hosts, however, given that she had just been accosted in her bed by two ten year olds, Lain was less inclined to feel guilty. Besides, she'd been offered free room and board in exchange for working the bar with Tifa later. Until Tifa said otherwise, that meant eating a reasonable amount of the more generic foods in the house.

Lain's long, spindly fingers searched through the sleek cupboards deftly, and after a minute or so a bowl of cereal that resembled coco puffs sat in front of her on the counter. The box was labeled "Choco Puffs" and had a picture of a strange bird that looked like a combination of a chicken and an ostrich on it. The bird was chasing the cereal with a wild-eyed expression that Lain would have thought might disturb most children. Taking a bite proved that it was, as Lain had expected, chocolate-flavored. It was good, too. She hoped Cloud didn't have an unreasonable attachment to Choco Puffs, especially if he was still sore about the use she had put his shoulder guard to in the pit stop during her grapple with that huge-ass spider. While she crunched away, Lain looked at the whitish sunlight illuminating the room from some slim windows in beams that illustrated the swirling dust all around. It was very Zen, the way the dust particles swirled around in an untraceable and deceptively lovely mélange of dead skin cells and insect droppings. Mmm...Zen...

Two things happened in very quick succession. Lain's head sagged, then dropped altogether into her Choco Puffs. Cloud walked into the room just in time to see her raise her head swiftly, sputtering and with beads of milk sticking to her hair and beading in her eyelashes. When Lain saw Cloud, she wiped her face with the back of her tanned hand, not at all removing all the milk down dripping down her face onto her collarbones and gave him what she very much hoped was a "and what the fuck do you want?" look. Cloud tossed her a towel from a drawer full off neatly folded hand towels and walked past her without a word to the cupboard with the Choco Puffs. Lain wiped her face more thoroughly, and lamented the fact that due to her rather slick display of dining idiocy, she was no longer entitled to making fun of Cloud for still eating what looked like a kid's cereal (never mind that she was eating it at seventeen.) Meanwhile, Cloud was pouring a bowl and didn't look at her again until he pushed her firmly but not forcefully away from the silverware drawer (which she was still standing in front of) after pouring milk into his bowl. It was the kind of push where instead of making contact once and sending the recipient flying, Cloud's left hand simply stayed on her shoulder until she was out of the way, then continued going about his business. Still utterly silent, he stood in place near the sink in much the same way Lain had, spooning Choco Puffs robotically into his mouth. She even wondered vaguely if perhaps she and Cloud had been woken up in a similar fashion. Lain considered making small talk, but decided against it when she felt milk drying on her throat and decided that now would be the time to go wash it off in the bathroom. Washing her bowl and placing it in the dish rack before leaving, Lain glanced back at Cloud once before climbing the stairs again.

Between the top of the stairs and the bathroom she caught sight of Marlene darting past. She glared balefully at the girl as she made her way down the hall to the bathroom. When Lain passed Tifa's door she was a little less than surprised to find Tifa just coming out the door, dressed in a long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves pushed up to the elbows and long blue and white-checkered pajama pants.

"We rise early," Lain said. It wasn't said like a question, but there was some curious incredulity behind it.

"Yeah, sorry if the kids woke you up. I thought I heard them a little while ago. I'll tell them not to bother you in future," Tifa said kindly, an apologetic expression taking hold of her features as she noted the slight circles under Lain's eyes. Then she noticed the rest of Lain.

"What happened to you?" she asked, tilting her head. "Is that milk?"

"Yeah," Lain replied ruefully. "I sorta fell asleep in the Choco Puffs. I was on my way to the, uh, the thing..." Her brain failed her and she gestured in the bathroom's general direction. Milk had somehow managed to drip onto her shirt now.

"Oh, yeah, go take care of that," Tifa said, nodding sympathetically. "Oh, that reminds me, you don't have any other clothes..."

"Uh-uh."

"Hmm, maybe we should take you shopping today then before the bar opens later so you'll have some other things to wear. Can't wear the same thing every day, right?" Lain wasn't sure what Tifa was suggesting. Was she supposed to have money?

"I've been meaning to take the kids to get some new shoes and things anyway, so we'll all go. After around ten, okay?" Tifa took care of that part for her. At least it seemed she was implying that she'd pay for everything, if what Lain got was being lumped together with what the kids got. Sweet (well, she'd be screwed otherwise.) Lain was quickly deciding that out of the people she'd met so far, Tifa was her favorite. She gave a two-fingered salute and turned away into the bathroom, where she washed all the milk off her skin and out of her hair as best she could in the sink, then dragged one of five brushes labeled "whoever" in handwriting that looked too messy to be Tifa's (Lain was sure that the bartender would be the type to have neat handwriting) but too mature to be a ten-year-old's, through her hair once or twice before her pink mess of hair looked fairly tolerable, then put it in a ponytail. According to the clock it was approximately seven by this point. Three hours. Time to read more of that gun book.

At about ten past ten Tifa leaned into the doorway of Lain's room to say that they were leaving in ten minutes. All Lain had to do was pull on her shoes and she was ready to go. Her head was full of various facts on the drawbacks of automatic pistols, which led her to various thoughts on the weapon best suited to killing ten-year-olds as the little pestulants ran circles around her while they waited in the living room for Tifa. A decent pistol would do the job, but something badass like a big old shotgun or machine gun would be so much more fun to do it with. In any case, it was not an option; Tifa seemed attached enough to the kids that she would ask Lain to leave if she killed them. She would have to find a way to poison them without anyone suspecting it was her.

The walk to the center of town was a short one, which made sense, given that Tifa's was a fairly large bar that looked like it got a pretty decent amount of business. They got to a sort of square that centered around a weird looking monument that reminded Lain of one of those toys for kids where you hold a button and it spins and emits light. Tifa guided them to a store that, by the music blasting inside, Lain would have avoided on principle. However, once inside, Lain was in joyful awe. Everything inside was like an orgasm for the eyes. Everywhere she looked, safety-pins, leather straps, black cloth, different colored lace, buckles, zippers, or crazy heels met her eyes. Then they left the teen section, Tifa saying that they'd be back. It made Lain's head feel like exploding.

Shopping for Denzel took all of two seconds; he just wanted a pair of boots that looked like they were miniatures of Cloud's, and a new jacket that made Lain admit that though the little demon would die someday, he didn't have bad taste. Marlene took a little longer. She had trouble picking between a yellow dress and a pink one after picking out a pair of sandals that looked like they came out of Rome, but when Denzel told her yellow looked like sunshine, she settled for the yellow one. It was almost cute. Then Lain resisted the urge to throw up.

Back to the teen section. Lain went on a high that seemed to last the entire trip after that. She wasn't sure _what_ exactly happened, but by the time they got home, she had some of the most amazing clothes she had ever seen. Ever. First, a jacket. A good, durable leather jacket that would last her a pretty long time from the looks of it. A really sexy pair of leather pants that made Lain wonder where they'd been all her life, and some jeans and a pair of comfy cargo pants. A pair of black, lace-up knee high boots with a combat heel rather than a ridiculous one. A tight black leather minskirt that Tifa told her she would _not_ be wearing while working the bar until she turned eighteen, if she stuck around that long. A black leather vest, meant to be worn open, with three tank tops in black, red, and purple respectively. A black shirt with only one strap worn at the left shoulder and none on the right, with fake-bondage straps that came out of Lain's imagination in terms of smex value. And a black leather collar, as well as a couple bracelets and a black cap that almost obscured most of her horrendous hair when it was in a ponytail. Tifa didn't seem to have an opinion on Lain's purchases, and when it came to undergarments, just left Lain with a few hundred gil and took the kids to get ice cream after asking what flavor Lain liked. Lain didn't usually spazz out about clothes, but everything that she had ever imagined might be sexy she had found in one day, and it was all the right size, and she hadn't paid for any of it. Best day ever.

They'd gotten home at around twelve-thirty, which was nice, because they hadn't taken long. Lain had never liked shopping for too long at a time. It wore on her nerves and made her feel stupid. After eating a more substantial lunch than just ice cream and digesting, Tifa and Lain both took naps. Lain decided to heed Tifa's advice on this one; the bar stayed open from four-thirty to four-thirty, and Lain would miss the sleep if she didn't get it now. At four o'clock they got up and started pulling chairs down off tables and getting ready for customers. Tifa gave her the lay of the land, as it were.

"Okay, so the heaviest drinkers or the ones who are looking to find somebody will come to the bar and stay there," Tifa said, as she made sure her pour-tops were all on right. "People who are just coming to enjoy a nice drink will probably come to the bar, get their drink, and grab a table. If there's one open, that is. Plus there'll be people who just make social calls in here. Friends of mine or Cloud's, or even sometimes parents of kids Marlene and Denzel go to school with. We get all kinds." She informed me that if a customer was caught harassing other customers, that after being asked once to stop, they were to be asked to leave. If Lain had to ask anyone to leave, Tifa said, and they didn't immediately, then Tifa would see to them. That made Lain almost want to have some kind of problem arise that night. The way Lain saw it, if Tifa could live under the same roof as a guy like Cloud and not get into serious gender role issues, then Tifa must have her own can of whoop-ass lying around somewhere. A formidably large can of whoop-ass. Tifa moved on, showing her where the various kinds of glasses were, and some basic things to remember. "I'll show you how to mix drinks as we go along, but tonight just serve things that come in bottles or things that don't have to be mixed with other things. I'm pretty sure you know how to serve a shot of tequila." Lain nodded. _Tifa's so tight. What the hell's wrong with Cloud, if they're not together?_ Lain hadn't seen any open displays of affection between the two, and each had their own room, so all clues seemed to point to Tifa the Ultimately Attractive and Cloud the Ultimately Blonde both remaining single as of yet.

At four-thirty, Tifa flicked the sign in the polished wood and glass door so that "Closed" faced inside, declaring it open to the public. Tifa looked flawless, as per usual, and Lain could imagine how being a bartender had been a choice to provoke some adversity for Tifa. Lain, for her part, had put her hair in a high ponytail and swept it under her black cap, then put on her black choker, a black tank top and her vest, with her favorite jeans from home, ripped and beautiful in their glory. She had to say that for having the ugliest hair imaginable, she didn't look half bad.

Of course, people didn't start coming at four-thirty. To fill the gap in time, Tifa fixed Lain another sprite with those red ice cubes and whipped out a deck of cards kept in a black pack. As Tifa shuffled, the inky black backs of the cards contrasted the flashing red and white of the cards. After Tifa went easy on Lain through a couple rounds of Speed, Lain was halfway through suggesting they play BS when she remembered that you couldn't play that with only two people.

"You'd win, anyway," Lain said, shrugging as she dealt the cards for a game of Egyptian Rat. "It's a game about knowing when people are lying and when they're not. I bet you have magical Mom powers." Tifa chuckled lightly.

"Do you lie to your mom a lot?" she asked, taking a sip of a glass of water. Her voice was even, not accusatory or disapproving, just curious. Lain thought it was a strange question. The answer should have been obvious.

"Yeah," Lain replied, in a voice that sounded a lot different than it usually sounded in her head. A strange sensation of melancholy washed over her at the thought of her mother. "I lied to her a lot because she wouldn't have let me do a lot of the things I wanted to do. And her rules were always unreasonable." Lain somehow felt like she was explaining something vastly important to Tifa.

"Did you ever think that all her rules were there because she cared about you and wanted things to work out well for you?" Tifa asked, not picking up her cards when Lain ran out of cards to deal. Lain didn't look at Tifa. She looked at the bar counter. Finally she shrugged.

"Doesn't matter. Nothing bad ever happened to me that wouldn't have if I'd followed her stupid rules. Besides, I take better care of myself than she ever took care of herself."

"Really?" Lain didn't get to say any more on the subject, because as soon as the inquisitive word was uttered by Tifa, the bell attached to the door clanged. Lain looked at the large clock on the back wall. Five. Early, but who was she to judge? The first customer of the evening was a man in his mid forties, with graying brown hair and silvery stubble glinting off his chin. Tifa swept up the cards and had them back in the back they'd come from before Lain had time to think about it.

"Eve'nin', Teef," the man said in a low voice, throwing himself down in a barstool. "Usual." Tifa smiled kindly and replied, "Coming right up, Travis." She immediately busied herself with preparing a drink that looked like every kind of deadly booze you could think of combined into a whiskey glass and with some fresh lemon squeezed into it. Why anyone would drink it was beyond Lain, but if Tifa agreed then she didn't show it when she passed the concoction to the man. Travis, as Tifa called him, took a sip of the drink and swallowed without so much as a crinkling of the mouth or eyes to indicate a wince. Lain decided not to delve further into the drinking habits of the more experienced. Obviously Lain had experimented with alcohol, but the only things she'd really learned about the various kinds was that rum tasted better than vodka and tequila was good with that Odwalla limeade.

_Takes all kinds, _Lain thought to herself, and with that she opened a chocolate stout (nasty stuff) for a woman in her mid-thirties.

It turned out that _Seventh Heaven_ was not only aimed at the over-thirty crowd. All age ranges crossed Lain's line of vision at some point—from those who had clearly just passed the legal-to-drink mark and were going out for a long night of bar hopping to the old-timers (Lain couldn't think of another word for them) who looked around fifty-five and as though they'd fought in some pretty gruesome wars. Most of them seemed to know Tifa, though the youngest ones didn't show signs of recognition. Lain felt rather stupid, seeing as she had to hand off half her orders to Tifa because she had no effing clue (god damn demon children and Tifa's insistence that their ears remain undamaged by profanity) what on earth a tonberry tonic "with a dagger swirl, like always" was. Consequently, Lain ended up running back and forth with a tray around the bar with a tray quite a lot.

The older crowd was very interested as to who Lain was, once they muscled their way through their first drink of the evening and realized there was, in fact, someone else behind the bar. Lain introduced herself about half a million times to various people who she had no intention of remembering at all. It was almost like one of those ridiculous family reunions were everyone asks you if you remember them, makes you feel bad for not remembering them, then says it's fine because they only saw you once when you were six months old.

Only...not at all like that, and the people seemed way cooler for the most part.

The shift went surprisingly fast, and before Lain knew it, Tifa was getting those who were still there kindly out the door at around four-twenty-five. By four-forty, everyone was gone and Tifa was cleaning up around the bar while Lain was putting empty bottles in a gargantuan recycling bin by the bagload. It was about five o'clock when everything was in order and Tifa announced that it was time to have a shot at sleeping. Lain was quite sure that if either of the demon children tried waking her this time, they wouldn't even be able to get a neurological response from her. Then again, if they did, it would be a sleeping reflex that drove her to strangle both of them simultaneously. If she had to pick, Denzel would go first.

Lain fell into bed just as a pale tinge started permeating the dark horizon.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

**Breadth**

Author's Note: I've been asked if there will be any official pairings in this fic. Well, to make everything perfectly clear, Lain will become the official love interest of every single male character whom I personally find attractive. Why'd you even ask? Just kidding. So far I just have a general rule of Cloud/Tifa, given that it's pretty standard. Well, unconsummated Cloud/Tifa, anyway. I'm thinking of hooking Lain up with a Tonberry, but that would be a twisted relationship at best.

…

Silly humans. You'll just have to wait and see what pairings emerge.

Disclaimer: The disclaimer died. The world will fall into chaos at this moment.

**Chapter Four**

"Bloating, heartburn, INDIGESTION. Upset stomach, DIARRHEA." It was a pepto bismol commercial that was the final straw.

That was it, she'd had it. This had to end. Lain couldn't take it anymore. Desperation had driven her to the point of no return. It was all or nothing, and if this was what All looked like, she was very willing to just end this and go with Nothing. It just wasn't worth it anymore. The weeks of pain were going to end. Right now.

Lain was cutting her hair. All of it.

It was disgusting. Seriously. Even if she _liked _the color pink it would still be hideous. Everything about it made her want to kill something. The bleach made her hair stringy and coarse. The pink wasn't even offensively fluorescent and therefore cool; it was like old paint meets pepto bismol—that was why the commercial had pushed her over the edge. Lain had found some scissors in a kitchen drawer, and had gotten up early so she could do this without an audience. She'd cut it, then clean the scissors and return the scissors and wear hats for the rest of her life.

The fed-up seventeen-year-old was just about to make the first cut when—

"STOP!"

Without warning a blonde blur slammed into Lain, tackling her and making her drop the scissors in the process. The sudden force took Lain completely by surprise, and she was sent flying across the bathroom with Cloud Strife taking every measure possible to get full control of her hands. They stopped with a sickening crunch against the wall, crumbling into the bathtub, Cloud scrambling to pin Lain.

"You don't have to do this to yourself!" Cloud exclaimed, quite serious, as Lain tried to kick Cloud off her. The minor contact her feet had with his shins and stomach (twisted together as they were) had little to no effect. _Goddamn Blondie with goddamn cinder block muscles. _"Get off me!" she tried, finally, when physically removing Cloud from her person proved useless. Cloud didn't listen.

"Lain, listen to me! It's _not_ worth it!" At first Lain was under the impression that Cloud had mistaken her intended use for the scissors as something entirely different. That didn't stop her from trying to head butt the rather heavy blonde and scramble out of the bathtub toward her abandoned scissors. Who cared what Cloud thought? She was cutting her bitchfuck hair whether he thought she was suicidal or not. No such luck. Cloud wrapped an arm around her throat firmly when she made a dive for the bathroom floor, pulling her into his chest and rendering her immobile but managing not to crush the breath out of her in a way that Lain decided was way too perfect. Stupid bastard.

"Whatever it is, we can fix it! You don't just give up; you work through your problems. You ask for help!" Cloud reaffirmed, apparently very affected by what he had just seen. Lain finally stopped struggling, breathing hard from a lot of effort that had produced very pathetic results.

"Will you chill out?" Lain said finally, still huffing and puffing from exertion. "I'm not trying to kill myself, you dipshit." Lain couldn't see Cloud's face, but when he next spoke Lain could picture a look of consternation and confusion paint his features.

"Kill yourself? _What?_" he said incredulously. Lain blinked.

"Yeah, no, I was just gonna cut my hair."

"No _just_ about it! I _know_ that's what you were doing."

"Can you stop choking me?" Cloud released her, and Lain climbed out of the bathtub and sat on the floor of the bathroom. "So, you seriously tackled me because you couldn't bear the thought of me cutting my hair?" she asked, wondering just how much blackmail material she was about to get out of this guy.

"Cutting's no laughing matter, Lain," Cloud said sternly. "If you were feeling this strongly, you should have said something." Brushing himself off, he got up. "If this is what you want, I'm going to handle it, and we're going to do it right." Lain was a little bit worried at this point. If Cloud truly took what one did with one's hair this seriously, it was a little less difficult to believe that his hair looked the way it did on a daily basis. She'd almost started to think it was naturally that way.

"So what are we supposed to do?" Lain asked. Cloud gave her a dirty look and pulled a stool from behind the toilet. "Sit," he said. He then opened one side of a mirrored medicine cabinet and took out a packet of black hair dye, some shiny scissors, tin foil, and plastic gloves. Then he reached into the shower and withdrew two bottles, one of shampoo and the other full of conditioner. He turned on and adjusted the hot and cold taps of what Lain now recognized as a purposefully large bathroom sink and held a pale hand under it.

"Get your hair wet in here," Cloud instructed. Deciding it would be best to cooperate with the psychotic delivery boy/hair dresser, Lain scooped up her hair and got it sufficiently soaked in the surprisingly perfect-temperatured water. The sound of shampoo being squeezed into Cloud's hand broke through running water, and Cloud started washing Lain's hair thoroughly, rubbing scented shampoo into her roots. It was a strange experience. Cloud went about it like a military operation, but it was immensely soothing at the same time. Cloud muttered disparagingly to himself about the state of her hair like a car enthusiast presented with a fixer upper. Rinsing, Cloud proceeded to condition with the vigor of a Civil War veteran. Lain had to make an effort not to fall asleep in the streaming water filling the sink. When he was done, he snapped his fingers as a way of telling her to flip back. She did, and saw Cloud roll his eyes at the stripe of pink droplets that now ran across the ceiling. He combed through her hair, giving her a solid middle part. He wrapped a towel around her shoulders and picked up the scissors.

"Close your eyes," Cloud told her, opening the scissors.

"I'd rather not, actually. If my hair looks like yours when I open them I'll feel like I'm on the show Punked."

"Just close them."

"Suck a dick, Cloud."

"I said close your eyes or I swear I'll give you an ungelled Mohawk."

"Fine. If you weren't a psychotic badass I'd be giving you the finger with my eyes open."

"It's for your benefit."

There was no more talking after that. Lain obediently closed her eyes and listened as high speed snipping overtook all other sounds. Every so often Lain would feel a piece of hair fall onto her face, then feel it pulled back again. Then it started to brush her chin. An image was starting to form in her mind. She could see something up angling and spiky in the back with chin-length bits at the front. It was hideous. Then, there was a snap of plastic gloves that reminded Lain a lot of Rocky Horror Picture Show. She got an ominous feeling, but remembered the dye was black. There wasn't much terrible you could do with black dye.

"Wait, why do you even have black hair dye?"

"A friend of ours used my bleach on Tifa once when she was passed out on the couch after a long night. I kept it in the cabinet with the risk that the friend might dye mine because Tifa didn't want my bleach in the house." Cloud said all this with a perfectly dull tone, and Lain could imagine a straight face, but Lain burst out laughing.

"Tifa—blonde?"

"Stop laughing so I can wrap this in tin foil." A loud crinkling noise followed the cease in Lain's laughter. Lain was familiar with this process. It took a while for Cloud to go through her whole head and dye it black—or at least, that's what Lain hoped he was doing. Finally, he stopped.

"Okay. Obviously your head isn't going to look like an alien launching pad, so you can open your eyes since you won't know what it looks like." Lain opened her eyes. Her head _did_ look like an alien launching pad, tons of tin foil under a plastic shower cap. It kind of looked like the crystal skull from the newest Indiana Jones movie or something. Lain chuckled, but only because she'd never used a shower cap before. Otherwise this was routine for hair dying.

"Let's eat something while that sits," Cloud said. Lain nodded, surprisingly hungry after her tiring tussle with Cloud in the bathtub and sitting up straight for nearly and hour now. She got up, cracked her back, and was followed by Cloud down to the kitchen. This time there was no falling asleep in the choco puffs. For the remaining time it took to dye Lain's hair they watched TV and fought over the remote. Cloud won, probably because unlike with the younger members of the household, Cloud didn't seem to feel guilty twisting Lain's wrist with his thumb and forefinger until she dropped it. Muttering foul language tied to Cloud's sex life and various farm animals native to Chile, Lain accepted defeat and tried not to gouge out her own eyes when Cloud flicked to something called Midgar 9-1-1. Mercifully, it went to a commercial and Cloud switched the channel with an air of disgust. Lain was relieved, but rolled her eyes when CSI Midgar came on instead. Another commercial came on and pretty soon Lain was burying her face in a pillow to Shinra's Angels, which featured a redhead, a black-haired personage, and a baldie. All were men.

Finally, Cloud poked at her metal-encrusted head, nodding as if in approval. "Up, interventionee." Plodding dutifully back into the bathroom, Lain sat back down on her stool and, at a glance from Cloud, closed her eyes once more. More crinkling followed by some tugging and the separation of one or two hairs from her scalp.

"Ow. Dickface. I'm better at this than you and look how my hair turned out last time."

"Shut up and be appreciative that I didn't put you in a straightjacket." Hauling her to her feet, Cloud guided Lain over to the sink, where he turned on the cold water this time and bent her body from the waist so that her head was lowered under the water. Lain hit her head on the tap.

"Cock monster!"

"Okay, there's got to be medication for whatever it is you have that makes you say stuff like that…" Cloud said as he rinsed. Toweling her hair first, then combing it to his satisfaction, Cloud backed off for a while. Lain listened intently, trying to figure out if he'd left her sitting there like a moron or something. Then, the recognizable sound of a hair dryer permeated the air. After a fairly painful fifteen minutes, Cloud turned off the hair dryer. After hearing Cloud step back audibly, Lain tilted her head, then stood up and opened her eyes. Holy. Shit.

"I'm damn sexy."


End file.
